Tatiana Riabouchinska

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Tatiana Riabouchinska, (Tatyana Ryabushinskaya), Russian-born dancer and teacher (born May 23, 1917, Moscow, Russia—died Aug. 24, 2000, Los Angeles, Calif.), was the oldest of the “baby ballerinas,” the three teenage dancers who in the 1930s captured public attention and attracted an audience to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, the company formed to fill the gap left by the dissolution of the renowned Ballets Russes following the death of impresario Sergey Diaghilev in 1929. She was known for her speed, her light, delicate style, her musicality, and her sensitive interpretation of roles. To many, however, she was also known in a completely different light—as the “model” for the hippopotamus ballerina in the Walt Disney animated film Fantasia (1940), whose artists had made rehearsal sketches of her. Riabouchinska escaped from Russia with family members during the Russian Revolution and settled in Paris. She was performing with a variety show, the Chauve Souris, when George Balanchine discovered her and signed her for the Ballet Russe, with which she danced from 1932 to 1942 and again in 1947. Among her most notable roles for the company were the Child in Jeux d’enfants, the Mistress of Ceremonies in Cotillon, the title role in Le Coq d’or, the Florentine Beauty in Paganini, Frivolity in Les Présages, and the Prelude in Les Sylphides. In another of her most famous roles, the Romantic Girl in Graduation Ball, she was partnered by the ballet’s choreographer, David Lichine, whom she married in 1943. The couple made a number of guest appearances internationally over the following years—during which Riabouchinska added the title roles in the classics La Sylphide and Giselle to the list of her more memorable triumphs—and in 1953 moved to California and opened a ballet school in Beverly Hills. For a few years they attempted to found a permanent Los Angeles-based ballet company, but they were unable to attract sufficient financial support. Riabouchinska continued teaching ballet until a few hours before her death.